Newbie Help

[billnyethescienceguy]

So, I'm just starting to get into tuning. I want to make sure I understand some things before I jump into it.

So, HP tuners suite program is a free download that you can use to tune or just check readings in your car. However, you will need a way to access your car's ob2 port. This is the part where I'm kinda confused. Does the ob2 scanner only work for certain cars or is it the program that has the info for all the different cars ecu's? If I'm not mistaken you have to buy an obd2 port that works for your specific car and the reason that the HP Tuners port cost so much is because it can access a wide variety of different cars.

[gtstorey]

To use the HPT scanner you have to buy the HPT MPVI3 to connect to the OBD2 port. There is a list of supported vehicles on their website. It will return some basic info for all obd2 vehicles, but the detailed data is available for the vehicles on the supported list.

[billnyethescienceguy]

Ok, thank you. I wasn't one hundred percent sure on the subject.

[Bill@HPTuners]

it is only guaranteed to work on vehicles listed on our supported vehicle list. Outside of the list it is hit or miss.

[Cringer]

So, I'm just starting to get into tuning. I want to make sure I understand some things before I jump into it.

So, HP tuners suite program is a free download that you can use to tune or just check readings in your car. However, you will need a way to access your car's ob2 port. This is the part where I'm kinda confused. Does the ob2 scanner only work for certain cars or is it the program that has the info for all the different cars ecu's? If I'm not mistaken you have to buy an obd2 port that works for your specific car and the reason that the HP Tuners port cost so much is because it can access a wide variety of different cars.

The HPT windows software is free.
You can download it and install it.
Then you can open, view, edit, and save the tune files (.HPT) using the HPT editor.
However, beyond that you will need to buy the hardware (MVPI3) to plug into the OBD2 port.
Once you have the MVPI you can now drive around and log channels for free (IIRC) in the HPT scanner to create log files (.HPL)
Then if you actually want to be able to flash the vehicle's ECM with the edited tune (based off the data from the log file), you will have to buy credits that are specific to your VIN.

And as others have mentioned, not all vehicles are supported, so before you spend any money, you should verify you ride is supported:
https://www.hptuners.com/vehicles/